Law & Grace - Who are you looking at? (serpent in the wilderness)
Vern Peterman · Jan 23, 2011
Law & Grace, No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926224535639

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. Better morning than the Israelites were having, apparently. I want to just bring your attention to parenting seminars that are available next month. Just to make clear, they are both of the same content. And so unless you really like the repetition, you don't need to attend both. So let me know which one of those is of interest to you.

As we look at this passage here, we hear about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. When you begin to look at this part of the map, then you know what the word wander means. They went around and around and around in much the same area, but going to different places in different directions within that. As we look at the passage here that was read for us, We see just one part of this wandering. This is towards the very end of the Israelites' time in their wandering of 40 years in the wilderness. So this is a brief account, as a matter of fact, of the passages that we've read and studied from in our study on Law and Grace. This is number eight. This is the shortest one so far. But that doesn't mean it isn't important. In fact, it's pivotal. It's pivotal for Israel, and as we'll see shortly, it's pivotal for us. So it's an important passage, even though short.

This, interestingly enough, is the last time, at least so far as is recorded, that Israel griped and complained. I suspect that once they decided, you know, last time we griped and complained, a whole lot of people got bit by snakes. They probably figured that that didn't work very well. and they probably better not do that again. Both the man that God provided, this is the reference to this miserable food, and the serpent pictured Christ, as we'll soon see here in the passage. It's one of the reasons why it's a pivotal passage. Now, we're going to do this as in boxing rounds. Round one, okay? Here's how it starts. This is the last great gripe here, is round one.

The people come to Moses and gripe as they have done before, complaining against both God and Moses. Interestingly, while they came to Moses, they complained, you know, it's God's fault, it's not only God's fault, it's your fault, you're both bad. They complained to both God and Moses about the conditions that they had Oh, it wasn't a new complaint when you've been traveling out in the wilderness That's not been varying that much for all coming up on four decades. I suppose the complaints don't change very much They do the usual complaining about being hungry and about being thirsty now Their grand finale in this is to make reference to the manna. This is this miserable food, right? Terrible stuff. Now, the way it works is this.

The manna, while they were out in the wilderness, would show up in the morning on the ground, and they would go and collect it, and they could collect as much as they needed for that day. If they tried to collect enough for the next day, it would go foul and rotten. and you couldn't continue to keep it for the next day, you had to only collect what was good for that day. One exception. Before the Sabbath, which was from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, they could collect two days worth. But that was the one exception. They were not allowed otherwise to collect enough to last overnight. By this time, most of the people in Israel had grown up eating mostly manna.

Can you imagine that? How do you like your manna cooked? Well, you don't get very many choices. Do you want manna or manna? There is no asking, what's for dinner tonight, right? And of course, I suppose one good thing is there's no such thing as leftovers, except on Sabbath day, right?

So that's what you got. You got manna or you got manna. And you can imagine the culinary variety in manna after several decades. Well, it gets a little old. And so even though it might taste pretty good, it's still called by this time, by almost four decades, this miserable food. Oh, we got one other thing to talk about with manna. You know what the word manna means? What is it? Or you could translate it another way, a whatness.

Bottom line is, they had no clue what this thing was, they just ate it every day. Every day, every week, every month, every year, and every decade, as long as they were out in the desert. That's why they called it this miserable food. Manna in the wilderness.

Now, this slide here, which you have in the middle of page one on your handout, is about Jesus, the bread of life, in John 6, 35 through 51. I won't read all of it, but I will point out some things. One is that it says in the passage four times, Jesus says, I am. In one case, they're quoting what he said, making reference to it, but nonetheless, I am the bread of life.

I am the bread that came down out of heaven. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. Makes that statement. This is a statement of I am that is actually put in the form of a claim to deity. There was a way of saying I am, in the original language, that expressed that he was saying I, being in fact God, am the bread of life. I, being in fact God, am deity.

And one of the things that is pivotal in this passage, as well as the passage we'll be looking at here, everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life. In verse 49, towards the end of that passage, he makes this statement, your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. Verse 50, this is the bread which comes down out of heaven. so that one may eat of it and not die. Christ himself is the bread of life. He makes this connection here with the manna, the whatness, if you will.

Christ is the source of life. This is one of a number of statements that he makes. I am the bread of life, but also in the Gospel of John particularly, he makes other statements. I'm the light of the world, the gate. In each case, it's a claim to deity. It's a claim that Christ is in fact God himself. Now, so Jesus made this connection in this passage we just looked at between the manna and himself. Those who ate the manna were sustained by it, but in fact ultimately they all died. But Christ said repeatedly that he is the bread of life. The one who takes of him does not die. He equated eating the bread of life with believing in Him. That is the one way to eternal life. The one and only. Round two.

Are you ready for this? Now, I'm going to warn you. We're going to show pictures of real snakes. If that makes you squeamish, if that bothers you in some way, if that grosses you out, avert your eyes for a few slides. I'll warn you and you can look back. So this is going to be a little much, I just want to warn you.

Now, there are serpents in that region of the world naturally. These particular serpents though, I'm sure the Israelites had encountered various serpents. These particular ones are, the passage says, ones that God sent specifically. So though there were serpents that were poisonous in that part of the world naturally, God sent them on a mission to judge the Israelites. So I imagine the Israelites found that these serpents were being particularly more aggressive. Instead of just responding when surprised or attacked, these serpents actually sought out the Israelites. And so the Israelites were noticing a difference in the serpent's behavior from all the other serpents that they had spent time with over the decades.

Here they had horned vipers in that region. They had puff adders. They had a carpet viper. There's also another poisonous snake in the area, and a cobra. And fifthly, there was a black snake. So five different kinds of snakes are possible in here. There may be one or more, possibly all five different kinds of snakes were being aggressively sent by the Lord against the Israelites, judging their complaining and griping. The term fiery, when you look at the snakes, they don't have a fiery appearance.

Apparently some of them had a few red dots, but most likely refers to the fiery burning sensation from the serpent's venom. The bite of the serpents wasn't just painful, however, though it indeed was very painful, but also fatal in certainly a great many cases. The Lord chose to send those serpents with a burning bite to discipline the Israelites. The Lord's intent was not to just simply wipe them out, but to discipline them for their griping and grousing and complaining. That was the intent. Now, no more snakes.

Though they were under law, and we are under grace, the Lord who loves us still disciplines us who are in the church. since he loves us so now I I certainly hope the Lord doesn't send a bunch of snakes here to Holly Hills and that we come to church to be bitten but nonetheless there are two reasons for believers to go through difficulties one is explicit discipline having to do with with not walking with the Lord having to do with disobedience That's part one. And then trials. The Lord may send in the life of a believer who is walking in fellowship with Him. Trials and difficulties. He has a purpose for both.

Hebrews 12 refers to the discipline part of it. And we have quoted in page 2 of your handout this Hebrews 12, 4 through 11 passage. We haven't the time to go through all of it, but I will read the last verse there. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

I think it's important for believers to recognize that the Lord will discipline believers who are not walking in fellowship with Him, and the Lord will also send trials even to those believers who are walking in fellowship with Him. We should expect that the Lord will do this. He has His purpose for both. The discipline is, I would summarize, primarily directed at getting us to walk in fellowship with Him and back on the path of fellowship with Him and other believers. The trials are for those who are walking in fellowship with the Lord, but the Lord intends to use the trials to cause us to grow. God has a purpose in both.

Round three. Now, while there are a few different ways the Israelites could have responded to the serpents biting them, they seem to have drawn the best conclusion. Oh, you know, all these serpents are chasing us down to bite us. God must be judging us rather than saying, oh, those confounded serpents.

The people went to Moses, not to complain this time. So far as we know, their prior complaint that we read about earlier was their last. They went to ask Moses to intercede with God for them. Moses, you need to talk to the Lord about this. We get the point. We understand why the serpents are chasing us down to bite us. We understand why they're coming at us in great numbers. We get the point. God's judging us. They realized they had done wrong, and they realized also who to talk to about it. Don't talk to the serpents. That's not going to do any good. But talk to Moses and he'll talk to the Lord. Round four.

God told Moses to set up a serpent on a standard. That is, you put it up on a pole, sometimes with some sort of a cross piece or a platform, so that anyone who had been bit by one of the serpents would then live, as opposed to the death that had been taking place. So here The serpent was put up. Everybody who wanted to could take a look at it and thereby be saved instead of being bit and then dying. So Moses did, as opposed to last time, exactly as God said for him to do. And anyone who had been bit by one of the serpents did, in fact, live. It's as simple as that.

Did you see that the Lord did not directly answer their request to remove the serpents? Very interesting. They came to Moses saying, Moses, ask God to take the serpents away. Did God take the serpents away? No. God did not take the serpents away. He didn't remove them. He instead provided a solution if the people were bit. So why didn't the Lord just remove the serpents? He didn't do as they had requested. While the Lord certainly could have simply removed the serpents, just take them away, problem solved, He chose not to. I would say for at least a couple of reasons. One is having Moses place this serpent up on a standard that people then had to act out of faith in God's provision. Do you see the difference there? If the serpents just went away, problem solved.

But here, they needed to act in faith out of God's provision. They needed to exercise faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. God is pleased by faith. I would suggest something that if the Lord puts a situation in our lives that is difficult, Removal of the difficulty is not always God's answer. God may in fact answer our prayer a different way. Making the difficulty go away may in fact not be what God has in mind.

Secondly, By having Moses place a serpent on a standard, it becomes an illustration that points all to Christ as God's provision. As we saw, the manna points to Christ. Here, too, the serpent on the standard points to Christ as well. Here's Jesus in John chapter 3. This is on page 3 of your handout as well, in a slightly different format.

Jesus pictured by the serpent in the wilderness in John 3 14 through 16 And I will read all of it as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life Why did Moses put the serpent up there not just so that the people would act in faith and but also to serve as an illustration.

Just as Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness, so also must the Son of Man be lifted up. Why? That those who believe in Him, who look to Him in faith, would have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

As the serpent was lifted up, so Christ was lifted up. As the Israelites who were bitten were saved physically by looking in faith at God's provision, so are people who have been bitten by sin saved spiritually, an important distinction, by looking in faith to God's provision in Christ. Christ who died for our sins. Christ who was buried. Christ who rose again. so that we might live eternally. Yes, there was a reason for the serpent to be lifted on a standard on the cross.

In the same way that the Israelites could have said, no, looking at the snake wasn't what I asked for. No, I'm not going there. That's not what I asked for. I asked for one thing and that's what I want. It is possible to say that about Christ's death on the cross. People would say, that isn't what I asked for. As a matter of fact, none of us asked for that. Did any of us ask for Christ to die on the cross? No. But he did.

In the same way, the Israelites could have said, no, that's too easy. I want something that's a little more involved. Involves a little more effort. Something where you get out what you put in. They could have said, no, that's a little too easy, too simple. It's possible people could say, no, just believing in Christ, that's all I have to do? It's just too easy. It's too simple. Have you ever heard somebody say, oh, I'm too bad. I'm too bad. God can't save me because I'm too bad. Excuse me, there was this guy next to him when Jesus was on the cross dying for our sins, and he was a thief. He was Rome's worst of the worst. He was dying for his theft. And Jesus says, today you will be with me in paradise. Today you will be with me in paradise.

Some of the Israelites might have said that they didn't have a problem, that it wasn't that bad. Oh, I don't really have a problem. You know, it's a bite, that hurts, but it's not that bad. Until they died. Similarly, there are people today who tell themselves they don't really have a sin problem. That it's not all that bad, until they die.

They might say, as long as God grades on the curve, I'll be real curvy. Right? As long as God grades on the curve, I'll be just fine. I'm pretty much kind of average, or maybe even better than average. Some people will say, well, I don't really believe in that God stuff.

And that might seem to them to work for a while until you come to the end of life. And as Jesus told the Jewish leaders, unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Yeah, it is a problem. And once you get to the point of death and you haven't dealt with the problem, that's a serious problem for a long time. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins.

See, people think that, in fact, a lot of people feel like they got away with this sin or that one. Oh, I didn't get caught for that one. See, nothing really happened. Well, guess what? Your sins stick with you. You're in them. Unless you believe. The sins that you carry out are stuck to you. and they accumulate and you get more and more and more. Unless you believe, then it's an entirely different outcome.

One of the things we could note here too, it's always about looking. The person who looks to God's provision through Christ in faith will be saved eternally. As we saw here, everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life and I myself will raise him up on the last day. That is the one who believes. The one who has looked to Christ for salvation continues to look to Christ and to so be transformed into Christ's image. The one who has believed so as to be saved continues to look to Christ to be changed even as the days go by, changed into His image. Then those who had been looking in faith will one day see Him face to face, but only those who look to the Savior.

In 1 John 3, it says, We know that when He appears, we, that is, we who believe, will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. We will be like Him. even to the point of having a new body. We'll be like Him. We'll see Him just as He is. Looking to believe so as to be saved, looking in belief so as to be changed and transformed, looking to Him face to face, like Him ultimately.

Ah, but I've forgotten something. There is a contrast. Well, you know, I didn't forget it, but I've got to point it out. We've been talking about comparing the serpent on the standard with Christ, and certainly there are similarities and comparisons, but there's also a very sharp contrast that we should not overlook.

The serpent didn't love the Israelites, except maybe to, you know, bite them, maybe that tastes good or something, but the serpent didn't love the Israelites, not even the one on the standard. In contrast, God's Word tells us something quite different.

God loved, as we saw in John 3.16, just a little bit ago. God loved and He gave. He gave His only begotten Son. Christ loved and He gave.

Galatians 2.20, He loved and He gave.

Ephesians 5.2, He loved and He gave.

Ephesians 5.25, He loved and He gave. So quite unlike the serpent, Christ loved and He gave. This is why in Hebrews 12, 2, 1 and 2, it would say that for the joy set before Him, Christ endured the cross. Why? Because He loved and He gave. That's why. No, the serpent didn't love the people that they did. The serpent on the standard was only made of metal. But Christ, in fact, loved and loves those he died for, every single one. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for that marvelous contrast that you did this not because somebody just put you up to it, but you loved and gave your life. You were motivated by love to do so. And we thank you for that love. And it's a love that doesn't just extend to a moment in time, 2000 years ago, but continues now and on into eternity. Thank you that as we behold the Savior this morning, we can look forward to beholding the Savior face to face for all eternity. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.